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Druid
:For a description of the role of druids within the lore of Warcraft, see Druid lore. For related articles, see Category:Druids. The '''Druid' is an extremely versatile hybrid class, which can be specialized to play the role of a Tank, Healer or Damage Dealer. It's even possible to become either a melee damage dealer (Rogue style), or a ranged damage dealer similar to a Mage. As every other hybrid, Druids need to specialize to be effective. Unlike other hybrids, specialization on a specific talent tree will not cripple the player on other roles as much as other hybrids. Overview The core abilities of a Druid consists of three single-target and one multiple-target mage-like damage spells, four single-target and one multiple-target priest-like healing spells, a Cat Form containing basic damaging special moves similar to a rogue, a Bear Form yielding armor and health similar to a Warrior, poison and curse cleansing spells, and a range of utility spells like various travel forms, crowd control and a nice group buff. Spending talent points in the talent trees allows druids to specialize their play style as they see fit. *'Balance' Druids specialize in their assortment of damage spells and special abilities including an additional Moonkin Form, turning them into an efficient ranged spellcaster that is somewhere between a mage and a shadow priest in play style, they lack true AoE capabilities but excel at nuking single targets as well as providing healing and crowd control support for their group or raid. The Burning Crusade brought the Balance tree enough power to make a properly geared balance druid decent competition with the caster classes for top DPS position. * The Feral tree enhances both of the druid's melee forms, allowing them to tank and melee DPS more efficiently. The talents in this tree usually enhance both forms equally and specialization into one of the two roles depends mostly upon gear. Feral druids are effectively a warrior and a rogue with the ability to heal themselves to boot. Lack of downtime between fights and flexibility in their armor and DPS are their strong points. *'Restoration' Druids specialize in their assortment of healing spells and special abilities including an additional Tree of Life Form. They are powerful healers, however they lack out-of-combat rezzing capacity, because the druid resurrection spell Rebirth has a 30 minute cool-down (at the same time being the only in-combat rez castable on others). Restoration Druids have the best heal over time spells. Together with their very high mana endurance (and their limited rez capability) this makes them arguably the best backup healers in raids. A properly specced and geared Druid is capable of fulfilling any of several roles in a group. Druid players need to be aware that this versatility also bears a danger - it may be difficult to keep focused, but mostly there can tend to be a great deal of doubt on the part of other players that a class can actually be as flexible as it is possible for Druids to successfully be. Hence they are not always welcomed in groups as they should be, though Burning Crusade and Blizzard's official endorsement of the Druid as one of their 'tapped' tanking classes has help legitimize the Druid class as something other than a healer to the populace in many ways. Indeed, it is not uncommon at all for a Feral Druid in Karazhan to vary their role in the group almost from room to room, moving from Main Tank, to Off-Tank, Melee DPS to Healing, and do them all successfully. All of these role changes can even happen over the course of a single fight. The ability to spec to completely different roles makes druids a smart and flexible class choice, if you tired of performing one task, you need not create another character to fulfill another role, you simply respec to a new one at little cost and considerably less effort Druids are quite an uncommon class. Many find them difficult to level, while others proclaim them the best soloing class in the game. Moreover, since the druid population is extremely low, there have been fewer examples of a well played Druid for other players to have experience of and emulate. In order to truly fulfill a hybrid role, druids require several complete sets of gear above and beyond any "resist sets" that most classes will possess. This is always expensive in time, bag space, and gold. Unlike most other hybrid classes, a Druid does not begin as a true hybrid with some abilities in each of their domains, instead they acquire utterly new branches of ability when they advance to certain specific levels. Thus a druid is only "complete" at comparatively high levels. This can make the very early game for the Druid more difficult than for other classes. However, once mastered, the Druid is one of the most formidable classes in the game with much to contribute to any group, and can be extremely rewarding and enjoyable to play. Another nice feature about playing druids is their ability to travel faster. Druids do not need to buy a flying mount though they are still required to purchase Expert riding skill, instead they gain flight form through druid trainers. Artisan riding skill is required to start the quest chain for the epic flight form. *Through a quest at level 16, druids gain their aquatic form allowing them to breathe and travel at normal speed under water. *At level 21, two talent points can be put into Feral Swiftness making the cat form 30% faster than normal running speed (Dash can boost this for 15 sec up to 70% at lvl 65). *At level 30 the travel form is gained, which is 40% faster that normal run speed. *At level 68, Flight Form becomes available in Outland. This form is just as fast as a normal flying mount, but has the additional advantage that it's an Instant Cast spell, allowing the Druid to avoid falling damage (if not in combat) by shifting to flight before hitting the ground. *After completing a quest chain, druids gain Swift Flight Form which is as fast as an epic flying mount (again with zero cast time). Races The Druid class is the most limited class concerning races. Only one race per side can become a druid: * Night Elves * Tauren Druid]] Armor and Weapons Druids are able to wear Cloth and Leather armor only. See Druid Sets for a list of druid armor sets. Depending on race, druids have different starting weapons: * Night elf druids start out being able to use staves and daggers; * Tauren druids start out with staves and one-handed maces. Beyond that, druids can learn to fight with: *Staff *One-handed Mace *Two-handed Mace *Dagger *Fist weapon *Also see : Druid weapons *Druids can never use shields (but in bear form their armor is as high as though they had one). *Druids can never dual wield. "Held in off-hand" items can still be used. This leads to druids usually using either a two-handed weapon, or a 1H + off-hand item. Forms The Druid's most notable ability is shapeshifting into different forms. Bear Form, Aquatic Form, and Swift Flight Form are obtained by doing Druid Quests. The other forms are purchased from a class trainer. For a full list of Druid Feral Form abilities see Druid Abilities. For all forms, the following applies: *The Druid is immune to polymorph in all forms except the basic humanoid form *Switching from humanoid to another form breaks polymorph *Switching form also breaks most movement impairing debuffs (like slow or frost) *Depending on the form, the druid is considered either humanoid, beast or elemental, and thus is vulnerable (or immune) to different spells. While shapeshifted into Bear, Dire Bear, Cat, Aquatic, Travel or Flight form: *The Druid is considered a beast *He may only use equipped items with "Use:" such as trinkets. Bag items (potions and other consumables) cannot be used. *Mana regeneration still continues but at a slightly reduced rate. Mana reducing abilities such as Viper Sting and Mana Burn have no effect while in forms. *Items with a "Chance on hit" portion and "Chance on hit" enchants such as Enchant Weapon - Crusader and Enchant Weapon - Lifestealing will not proc. "Chance on hit" effects built into armour, such as the Green Whelp Armor's sleep, however, will still work. *Weapon DPS and weapon +damage enchants have no effect. The weapon damage bonus from the Might of Cenarius ring, though, does work. *Items with an "Equip:" do work in forms. Some examples of these items are the Naglering's three points of arcane damage when hit and the Darkmoon cards that proc on melee damage (Darkmoon Card: Heroism and Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom). *Weapon skill with the equipped weapon has no effect. Instead, the natural weapons always have the maximum weapon skill for their level. *In Moonkin form the druid is considered Humanoid and, while still immune to Polymorph and similar spells, can be affected by other abilities targeted at Humanoids such as Sap. *Tree of Life is considered an Elemental and thus vulnerable to Elemental dependent spells such as Banish. *Weapon procs and enchants will proc in both, Moonkin and Tree of Life form. There is also a Druid Quests page with an outline for the level 10 (Bear), level 16 (Aquatic), and level 70 (Swift Flight) quests. Spells In addition to healing spells, Druids also have excellent buffs in the game. They also have some limited damage spells, making them (if properly geared and with proper talent point allocation) just as powerful, however being less versatile than Mage or Warlock spells for example. See the Druid abilities page for further details. Talents Druid Talents are split into three categories: * Balance - Focus on Damage Spells to make the druid an efficient caster damage dealer. * Feral Combat - Focus on using the druid forms (Cat Form, Bear Form, Dire Bear Form) in the aspects of tanking (Bear/Dire Bear Form) and melee damage dealing (Cat Form). * Restoration - Focus on Healing Spells to make the druid an efficient healer. It's important to note that each Druid talent tree contains some talents which are actually useful if specializing in one of the other trees. For example, some Feral Combat talents modify maximum mana, some Balance talents modify cost of healing spells, while others are helpful for the feral forms. Finally, some Restoration talents give the druid rage/energy when he switches into either Cat or Bear Form. There are good talent calculators that can be found here: Official Blizzard site, WorldofWar.se, WoWhead, WoW Vault, ThottBot and Merciless. See the Druid Talents and Druid Talent Analysis pages for further details. End-Game Expectations Greatly improved non-healing itemization and talents in The Burning Crusade has increased end-game viability for druids of any talent specialization. There is still no class that is better at healing over time than Restoration Druids. In raid encounters where there is high mobility and cast times are often interrupted a Druid is quite effective in healing due to the instant cast nature of their HOTs that can be cast on the run. Many guilds have accepted feral and balance druids as core raiders due to the ability of these talent specializations to switch roles on demand; for example, a feral druid can change from tanking to DPS after an add they are offtanking dies. Feral Druids are prized for their threat generation which is often better than that of warrior or paladin on a single target. It isn't uncommon for serious raiding guilds to bring 2-3 feral specced druids on raids for their hallmark versatility of being able to tank on bosses that require multiple tanks or contribute dedicated melee DPS on fights where only 1-2 tanks are required. This is something that the base classes cannot do easily if at all. Unlike Warrior and Paladin tanks which need to go deep into their protection trees to be 25-man boss tank viable, effectively gimping their ability to contribute DPS when not tanking, Feral specced druids are able to tank boss level mobs or contribute impressive melee DPS using the same talents. Balance Druids have also risen in demand (although not as much as feral), due to the DPS they can bring into a raid, and the fact that they make excellent emergency healers during a raid. See Also *Druid Spells and Abilities *Druid Talent Analysis *Druid Tactics *Druids as Tanks *Druid Quests *Starting a Druid *Alamo *Useful macros/Druid *Druid sets *Spell Damage Coefficients External links *Druid Leveling Guide - Helps new druids choose their talents at early levels. *Burning Crusade Druid Spell Preview *Druid Movement Speed Table *Druid Bear Gear List as of 6/28/07 *Shifting Perspectives - weekly druid feature at WoW Insider Category:Druids Category:ClassesCategory:WoW Classes